Grady coalition demands: 'Health care is a human right!'

The national health-care crisis has erupted in Atlanta with the threatened closing of Grady Hospital, one of the country’s biggest public hospitals, because of a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall. The dire prediction is that without an immediate infusion of $120 million, which is the cost of just a few hours of waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Grady will be unable to meet its payroll and pay its bills by the end of October.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce sparked fierce debate when it issued a demand on July 13 that as the only solution to the downtown hospital’s escalating financial instability, despite assets valued at an estimated $1.3 billion, the taxpayer-supported facility be turned over to a private “not-for-profit” management board.

The Chamber Task Force that devised this plan drew its membership from  some of the city’s largest corporations, including major developers, insurance companies and banks, as well as the head of the Atlanta Housing Authority, responsible for the destruction of public housing in Atlanta.

Collectively, the members of the Chamber of Commerce have reaped huge profits from massive gentrification of inner-city neighborhoods, development tax breaks and a low-wage, largely non-union work force without health insurance benefits.

This big-business group claims that if the decision-making body changed to one more acceptable to the city’s powerful elite, money would pour in from foundations and philanthropists.

Immediately after the release of the Chamber ultimatum, a coalition of patients, doctors and nurses, hospital workers who are members of AFSCME Local 1644, progressive elected officials and community activists mobilized.

Although segregated until 1956, over its 115-year history Grady Hospital has developed into a health-care network with 10 neighborhood clinics and world-renowned specialty units in neonatal, burn, poison control and infectious disease care among others.

Grady is the only level-1 trauma center staffed 24/7 with surgeons and other highly trained staff capable of handling all kinds of emergency critical care within a 100-mile radius of Atlanta.

Victims of automobile accidents, plane crashes, shootings and industrial fires are routinely airlifted to Grady from counties throughout Georgia.

Grady is also a teaching hospital for Emory and Morehouse medical schools, training a full 25 percent of all doctors practicing in Georgia.

Those favoring privatization, in fact, list precisely these outstanding services provided by the hospital when they talk about how to “save Grady.”

What they don’t mention is that of the more than 900,000 patient visits last year, the great majority were by uninsured or underinsured people who sought medical attention for diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension, lupus, sickle cell anemia, cancer, HIV-AIDS and other ongoing conditions that require consistent attention, medication and monitoring.

For tens of thousands of residents of Fulton and DeKalb counties whose taxes fund Grady, it is the hospital of choice. For millions throughout the metro area and state, Grady is the health-care safety net.

Many highly qualified Atlanta area private hospitals and other not-for-profit institutions routinely refer privately uninsured patients to Grady, preserving their own bottom line.

Sick people from the rest of the counties that contribute no funds to Grady are also provided needed health care. As of May of this year, this already totaled more than $34 million in un-reimbursed costs.

And that is the real core issue that is glossed over by the proponents of the “governance” proposal as the solution to Grady Hospital’s financial crisis.

Over the recent past, the state of Georgia and the federal government have cut funds for health care by the millions and billions of dollars.

Last year the state changed the funding formula for reimbursement for Medicaid and Medicare patients, resulting in a $60 million cut for Grady. As is, these programs only cover about 80 percent of the cost of the care given to these needy patients.

At the same time, the costs for indigent care increased $73 million.

The Grady Coalition is battling a wide array of powerful forces from the CEOs of Atlanta’s business community to their media mouthpieces and the mayor, who all support turning the control of a public health institution to a private, unaccountable group.

Through leafleting, petition drives, interviews on radio talk shows, organizing public hearings, speaking out at the Fulton and DeKalb County Commission meetings, picket lines and other forms of direct intervention, the diverse members of the Grady Coalition are working tirelessly to mobilize a grassroots movement to win, in the short-term, increased funding at the county and state level.

Their efforts have already seen some results. The county commissions have approved additional emergency funding.

A campaign is being directed to demand that the state of Georgia, which has a $600 million budget surplus, immediately alter the funding formula and replace the $60 million Grady lost.

The crisis in Atlanta is one that is repeated around the country. Public hospitals are being closed or are giving diminished care to the poor and uninsured.

As workers’ wages and benefits wither under a steady attack by their bosses, as young people have less and less expectation of keeping a job long-term, as the population as a whole lives longer, the obvious answer is a national health-care plan that covers everyone. An organized national movement will be the only way to achieve it.

Mathiowetz is an active memberof the Grady Coalition.